In February this year the Guardian ran two articles by its Jerusalem correspondent, Chris McGreal, exploring possible similarities between Israel and apartheid South Africa. A complaint about them from a pro-Israel professional lobby organisation called Camera, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, has been pursued throughout the past eight months.

The complaint questioned the fundamental accuracy of the articles and has involved the exchange of many thousands of words - greatly exceeding the total length of the two articles. It has been rejected by the Press Complaints Commission in an adjudication - which I shall come to shortly - that makes an important statement about freedom of expression.

It is not difficult to see why Camera, which is based in Boston and concerned principally with the American media, should take an interest in a newspaper that is based in London. The Guardian through its website reaches more than five million individuals in the United States every month. Globally, the figure rises to almost 13 million. Surveys of readers show that its reporting is generally trusted. This makes it, in common with some other high-profile American and European newspapers and broadcasters, a target for interest groups who would like to see its reporting be more sympathetic to their perspective. Failing that, they would like to see its credibility and influence diminished.

This is particularly true in the difficult area of Middle East reporting, and especially in reporting Israel/ Palestine. (The Guardian's coverage is the subject of a section of its social audit, published today, which I recommend reading, see below).

The Camera complaint about the Guardian articles came first to my office and was eventually rejected except in one small particular for which a correction was carried. Camera then took the complaint to the Press Complaints Commission who also rejected it. Then Camera appealed to the PCC's charter commissioner, Sir Brian Cubbon - in effect, the PCC's ombudsman. He concluded that the PCC had considered the complaint fully and fairly, making it possible for the PCC to publish its adjudication.

It is worth reading the whole adjudication, which you can find on the PCC's website (pcc.org.uk) where it follows an agreed summary of Camera's complaint. The adjudication notes that the journalist "made clear that his claims would be contentious, and indicated that the majority of Israelis would not accept the comparison between Israel and apartheid South Africa.

"Readers would, in the commission's view, be aware that this represented a particular - and polemical - approach to an extremely complicated subject, and that other versions of a historical account of the position in Israel would undoubtedly exist."

The commission said it was apparent "that much of this complaint was founded on the complainant's fundamental disagreement with the hypothesis at the centre of the articles".

The adjudication continued: "However, inherent in freedom of expression is the right for newspapers to publish challenging and partisan material, which inevitably includes political judgments with which many will disagree. The newspaper was entitled ... to select material, in the form of quotations (which had not been disputed by the people quoted) or statistics, that supported the clearly stated premise of the article. It was not obliged to attempt to balance every statement with reference to a counter-argument or counter-interpretation that existed elsewhere and opposed the position espoused in the article."

On accuracy, it said, "The particular points of alleged inaccuracy specified within the complaint were all widely disputed in different accounts." It noted that named sources were quoted in support of statements made in the articles.

There are several things I would like to point out. When a complainant dissatisfied with my handling or adjudication of a complaint goes to the PCC, I play no further part in the matter. The Guardian itself, through the office of the managing editor, then deals with the PCC. In this case the result - after requiring the correspondent to go once again over all the ground at even greater length - endorsed the conclusion that I had come to.

In general, the methods employed by Camera seem to me to go beyond a reasonable call for accountability. It has, for instance, been involved in a long-running battle with NPR, National Public Radio, in Washington, over its Middle East coverage, organising demonstrations outside NPR stations across the US and seeking to persuade NPR's supporters to withhold funds.

In the past few weeks I have been dealing with another complaint from Camera directed at a report by McGreal's successor in Jerusalem, Rory McCarthy. This was concerned with figures for Palestinian casualties in Gaza. McCarthy in my view satisfactorily answered two lengthy emails from Camera and I concluded that no correction was required. I repeated this assertion when Camera persisted in the complaint. It seemed to me that to question him further would be to collude in the harassment of a journalist trying to report accurately in a very difficult situation.